+
Weekend Campers
Repair Their
"Jack-rabbit" Home
In the midst of brush and
Joshua trees, Lloyd and Mary
Zondler hung out a house num
ber (left).
"It was a mistake,"
they acknowledged, "because the
tax assessor saw it and left a
notice arbitrarily rating the
cabin's contents at $50."
Each Friday afternoon the
Zondlers load a half-ton truck
with water, firewood, and pro
visions and drive the 65 miles
from Burbank to Pearblossom.
On Sunday, rather than set the
desert afire, they bundle up all
their trash for burning at home.
The author saw Mrs. Zondler,
in what seemed a curious ma
neuver, pick up a pair of binoc
ulars and survey the desert.
"Bird watching?" he asked.
"No, people watching," she
laughed.
"We have a protec
tive association, and neighbors
keep tab on one another's cabins
while they're gone."
Homesteaders' Arrows +
Point to "Five Acres
of Dreams"
Jack-rabbit pioneers from big
cities find refuge from fumes
and confusion among the sage
brush and Joshua trees off the
Yucca Valley-Victorville road.
"Do-it-yourself" builders create
everything from one-room
shacks to four-room cottages.
"Our Haven from Slavin' " be
speaks their philosophy.
+
Young Settler
Gets an Outdoor Bath
Pamela, the German shepherd,
chases chipmunks and guards
Morna Ruth Kimberlin from
rattlesnakes. Until Morna's
father, Robert, drilled a well, he
hauled water nine miles in the
trailer tank (background), and
Anne, the mother, made bath
water do double duty by irri
gating peach trees. They live
near Pearblossom.
"As far back as we can re
member," Mr. Kimberlin said,
"my wife and I always wanted
a home of our own. But how
could we afford one without
going head over heels in debt?
This cabin was the answer:
materials cost $300; the labor
was our own."
( National Geographic Society
volumes about the land hunger of city dwellers (opposite).
Amid the brush and Joshua trees, we found transplanted
cityfolk reverting to rural ways and helping one another build
cabins. Some of these dwellings sat carelessly in dry washes,
where the first flash flood was sure to carry them away. Flimsy
outhouses lay on their backs, knocked down by high winds
like victims of a Halloween prank.
When Wahoo Sam Crawford, an old-time outfielder for the
Detroit Tigers, was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame this year,
reporters vainly sought him in his accustomed haunts in Los
Angeles. He had gone to Pearblossom for the weekend.
We met no athletes in Pearblossom, but as we drove away
our jeep flushed a convention of long-eared high jumpers, the
Mojave's true jack-rabbit homesteaders.
Desert Pool Offers Trout Fishing
Touring Apple Valley, 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles,
we found the real estate boom in full blast. One mild Sunday
in March we saw half a hundred salesmen in cowboy togs
standing in wait for visiting prospects.
The discovery of an underground reservoir fed by snow
capped mountains has given Apple Valley an almost unlimited
water supply and encouraged developers to subdivide the desert.
To see the valley's flowing water, I went to the Stoddard Jess
trout and turkey ranch, where pumps dip into the sunken
Mojave River, 150 feet below the surface.
This water flows out of the ground at 570 F., an ideal
temperature for trout. Last year Mr. Jess raised two million
rainbows. These he marketed or offered alive in an angling
pool on the ranch; the largest measured 36 inches.